Location of the monument:

Latitude: 56.302487
Longitude: 25.936670

In July 1941, the local “self–defenders” found in a forest in Birži parish a group of Jewish refugees, possibly – from Lithuania, and shot them at the turning to Zasa on the road Birži–Ilūkste.

A monument with an inscription in Latvian “On this site in July 1941 henchmen of fascists brutally murdered Soviet citizens” and lines by L.Vācemznieks “Comrades, you must know, the Sun is still alive, / comrades, you must know, the motherland is free” on it has been erected on the site of massacre.

Further reading:

• Meler M. Jewish Latvia: Sites to Remember. Tel-Aviv: Association of Latvian and Estonian Jews in Israel, 2013.
• Ezergailis A. The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941-1944: The Missing Center. Riga: The Historical Institute of Latvia; Washington, DC: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1996.

Search for the related names of Jews at http://names.lu.lv.